UN Climate Fanatics

A fanatic, said Winston Churchill, is someone “who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” That’s an apt description of senior United Nations personnel.

Last week, I listened as Ban Ki-moon, the head of the UN, addressed a room full of other UN personnel in Warsaw, Poland. His remarks followed those of Achim Steiner, who’s in charge of the United Nations Environment Programme, and Michel Jarraud, who leads the World Meteorological Association.

Those two organizations happen to be the parents of a third UN body – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Ban Ki-moon mentioned it in his speech. Indeed, he went so far as to assure the assembled crowd that while the UN had been “very much troubled by science skeptics” just “a couple of years ago,” the recent release of the new IPCC report had put an end to all that.

There is now, he said, “much more clarity.” It “is a scientific finding” that climate change is humanity’s fault.

When UN leaders get together, this is what they tell each other. This, apparently, is what they believe.

They kid themselves that the highly politicized IPCC is up to the task of separating scientific fact from fiction. Despite the ever-accumulating news reports, blog posts, and books to the contrary, they think the IPCC is held in universal high esteem. Moreover, they fantasize that a UN document has the power to silence all critics, to quell all doubts.

Although their own poll tells them that climate change is at the absolute bottom of the public’s list of concerns worldwide, UN officials are unfazed. They are the self-anointed. They are on a mission. The planet is in peril, dammit.

Like everyone else, these people are entitled to their delusions. They’re entitled to whatever peculiar worldview works for them. The problem is that they’re trying to impose that worldview on the rest of us.

On another occasion last week, Ban Ki-moon spoke of “the large-scale transformation necessary to stabilize the climate” – a transformation we are expected to embrace. He talked about the need for “an ambitious global legal agreement” – a legal agreement to which we are expected to adhere.

Funding and financial commitments play a large role in his speeches. “Current pledges are simply inadequate,” he declares. His crusade requires our money.

When you stop to think about it, it’s all rather incredible. Ignoring public opinion, declaring that minorities with whom you disagree no longer exist, isn’t smart. Such behaviour is downright disrespectful. It’s anti-democratic.

Why would people the UN treats so shabbily have the slightest interest in joining, supporting, or funding its activities?